534: Chapter 534 The Burned Past

Konks stood before the metal cabinet half-embedded in the wall, his heart beating like a drum.

The faint sound of the helmet's internal circulation System seemed amplified several times over to his ears at this moment.

The cabinet was very empty, with only a few items scattered on the bottom shelf.

A thick notebook with a severely aged cover.

Several flat, palm-sized metal or synthetic material boxes, with some interfaces and indicator lights that had long since gone dim.

His gaze was first drawn to those small boxes.

The style seemed similar to some old archives he had seen in the current Void; they were physical media used for storing data.

However, these ones were an even older model and were covered in dust.

They were Data disks!

Konks's heart beat even faster.

He carefully reached out, picked up the small boxes one by one, and gently brushed away the dust on their surfaces.

The boxes were light, and while the interface styles were ancient, the structures appeared intact without obvious physical damage.

He looked at the notebook again. There was no writing on the cover, and the paper was fragile and yellowed.

"I wonder what's inside."

Konks muttered to himself, his voice sounding somewhat muffled inside the helmet.

He carefully placed the Data disks into the sample bag on the side of his backpack and then properly stowed the notebook as well.

It was not wise to stay here for long. He needed to return to a safe place to process these items.

He took one last look at this vast, deathly silent storage area and the even larger space below, suppressed the excitement and unease in his heart, and turned to return along the way he came, quickly yet cautiously.

Passing through the dark shaft and the dilapidated laboratory area, he finally crawled out through the hole he had cut in the metal door.

Outside, the polar winds were still biting, but Konks felt that this cold air, filled with lethal radiation, was better than the time-frozen silence within the ruins.

He identified his direction, activated the Exoskeleton's power-assisted running mode, and sped toward the ice crevice where the spaceship was hidden.

Returning to the ship, he closed the hatch and started the internal purification procedure.

Only after the protective suit's self-check showed that external contamination had been cleared did he dare to take off the heavy "iron can."

Although the temperature inside the ship was constant, he still felt a chill.

Without stopping to rest, he immediately took the Data disks out of his backpack. The ship's main computer was powerful, but the interfaces didn't match.

However, this wasn't a problem for a well-prepared researcher.

He rummaged through his toolbox and found a Universal interface adapter, produced by the Company, which claimed to be able to interface with 90% of electronic ports and various protocols within known physical theoretical frameworks.

He connected the Data disk to the adapter and then to the ship's computer. The computer immediately recognized the unknown storage device and popped up a decoding request.

"Begin decoding. You can prioritize the data encoding format of the Shankong Civilization," Konks ordered.

The computer began running the decoding program, and the progress bar moved forward slowly.

The first Data disk seemed severely damaged, and multiple formats failed to read it. The second only yielded some garbled code. Konks's heart sank bit by bit.

When the third Data disk was connected, the progress bar stuttered for a moment and then suddenly surged forward.

[Decoding successful. Multiple types of digital content identified.]

[File formats: Video, audio, text logs.]

[Proceed with content repair and translation?]

"Yes! Immediately!" Konks almost shouted. He pulled over a chair and stared intently at the main screen.

The screen lit up, and a flurry of snowflake-like static flashed across it.

Then, a grainy image appeared.

The video quality wasn't very good, feeling as if it had been recorded with relatively primitive equipment and then suffered the erosion of long years.

In the image was a grand, massive building with a classical style, fronted by a wide plaza.

Konks didn't recognize the flags hanging on the building, but the architectural style was completely different from the biological aesthetics of today's Void Hive City, more closely resembling the old-era research institutes or national libraries he had seen in some human historical records.

But at this moment, there was no hint of the solemnity of an academic hall in the plaza, only a scene of chaos and terror.

A dense crowd of people was being herded, gathering in the center of the plaza.

Most of them wore clothing similar to white lab coats or Scholar robes, and many faces bore expressions of anger, fear, or numbness.

Surrounding them were fully armed soldiers holding weapons that looked quite barbaric and bloody.

The soldiers roughly divided the crowd into several groups, and some people were shoved to their knees.

At the edge of the plaza, a mountain-like pile of items had already been built.

Books, scrolls, paper documents, and some things that looked like precision instruments.

A person wearing a magnificent military uniform and a cloak embroidered with strange symbols walked to a temporary platform at the front of the plaza. Holding a megaphone, he began to speak.

The voice, raspy and harsh from poor recording and the wear of time, still carried a fanaticism and coldness that pierced through a hundred years and remained clearly audible.

"...The era of ignorance is over! The arrogance of the faithless has defiled this land for too long!"

"You!" He pointed at the bound and kneeling Scholars below. "It was you who used hypocritical rationality to build towers of arrogance and pry into the mysteries of high heaven!"

"You stole the knowledge that belonged to us! You created chaos and brought about strife!"

"Today, by the decree of the supreme and only True God, 'high heaven'! With the fire of purification, we shall cleanse all this filth!"

"From now on, in the Void land, there shall only be the grace and guidance of high heaven!"

"These," he pointed to the mountain of books and instruments, "these remnants of the faithless, along with the Souls that created them, shall all be thoroughly purified!"

"Burn!"

At his command, the soldiers threw torches into the pile of books.

The dry paper and Materials were instantly ignited, flames soaring into the sky as thick black smoke billowed.

At the same time, sporadic screams rang out from the edge of the plaza. The image shook violently; the person filming seemed to be dodging in terror as well.

On the edge of the shaky footage, Konks saw several kneeling figures silently collapse to the ground after a flash of firelight.

Then, they were thrown into the sea of fire.

The video abruptly ended there, and the screen was once again covered in static.

Konks froze in his chair, his hands and feet cold.

He could hear his own heavy breathing, exceptionally clear in the quiet cabin of the spaceship.

Publicly executing scientists. Burning books and research Materials. Carrying out systematic extermination in the name of that so-called high heaven.

Was this the other side of the "Purification War"? No, this might be the true face of the "Purification War"!

"Purifying all heretics who do not conform to their ideology!"

He felt a wave of nausea.

Not physical, but a strong mental discomfort.

As a scientific researcher, he viewed knowledge and exploration as the ladder of civilizational progress.

And what was shown in the images before him was the most naked and barbaric trampling and destruction of knowledge, rationality, and science.